LALAGE.

Alas, proud Earl,

Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me!
How, in thy father's halls, among the maidens

Pure and reproachless of thy princely line,
Could the dishonoured Lalage abide?

Thy wife, and with a tainted memory—

My seared and blighted name, how would it tally
With the ancestral honours of thy house,

And with thy glory?

POLITIAN.

Speak not to me of glory!

I hate-I loathe the name; I do abhor

The unsatisfactory and ideal thing.

Art thou not Lalage, and I Politian?

Do I not love-art thou not beautiful

What need we more? Ha! glory!-now speak not of it.

By all I hold most sacred and most solemn

By all my wishes now-my fears hereafter—

By all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven-
There is no deed I would more glory in,

Than in thy cause to scoff at this same glory
And trample it under foot. What matters it-

What matters it, my fairest, and my best,

That we go down unhonoured and forgotten

Into the dust-so we descend together.

Descend together-and then-and then perchance

LALAGE.

Why dost thou pause, Politian?

POLITIAN.

And then perchance

Arise together, Lalage, and roam

The starry and quiet dwellings of the blest,

LALAGE.

Now, Earl of Leicester !

Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts

I feel thou lovest me truly.

And lovest thou me ?

POLITIAN.

Oh, Lalage!

[Throwing himself upon his knee.

LALAGE.

Hist! hush! within the gloom

Of yonder trees methought a figure pass'd—

A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless

Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noiseless.

[Walks across and returns.

I was mistaken-'t was but a giant bough

Stirred by the autumn wind. Politian !

POLITIAN.

My Lalage-my love! why art thou moved?

Why dost thou turn so pale? Not Conscience' self,

Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it,